Teterboro expecting up to 600 jets for Super Bowl

By RICHARD NEWMAN

STAFF WRITER |

The Record

More than 1,200 private jets are swooping in and will buzz out of the region's airports for the Super Bowl on Sunday, according to a Federal Aviation Administration estimate, and about half of them are expected to use Teterboro Airport, the closest one to MetLife Stadium.

Teterboro and Morristown airports will be operating at or near capacity this weekend, and special flight restrictions are in place, including reservations-only takeoffs and landings. As many as 600 aircraft are expected at Teterboro, and ground operations have brought in extra staff from around the country to handle the surge. Mario Diaz, general manager of Landmark Aviation, one of five aircraft operations bases at Teterboro, said that company alone has brought in 20 more employees for the weekend to lift its workforce to 140.

"The Super Bowl is one of the biggest draws for private aviation along with the Kentucky Derby, the Indianapolis 500 and the Masters golf tournament," said jet sales broker Janine Iannarelli, president of Houston-based Par Avion Ltd., which is opening an office in Ridgewood this year.

Airports in White Plains, N.Y., and Caldwell in Essex County also are requiring reservations for takeoffs and landings this weekend.

As a routine Super Bowl security precaution, the airspace over East Rutherford will be a no-fly zone from about 2 p.m. until just before midnight on Sunday, a requirement of the FAA.

Teterboro is within the no-flight zone, so its flight operations will be shut down during those hours.

Beginning probably around midnight Sunday, jets are expected to start departing at a steady pace through the night as voluntary noise restrictions have been set aside and the departures may continue through much of the next day.

"That's typically what happens after Super Bowls," said Diaz. "There is a compression of departures right after the game."

Teterboro Airport's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, provided the airport with a machine last week to melt snow on the tarmac to make more space for airplanes. Temperatures are expected to be in the 40s this weekend, easing concerns about the weather. Even so, the Port Authority brought in an extra 21,000-gallon tank of an anti-icing liquid for runways and taxiways, just in case, said Port Authority spokesman Ron Marsico.

Morristown Municipal Airport has closed the smaller of its two runways and is using it to park planes. It is the first time that strategy has been used since the terrorist attacks in 2001, when nearly all of the planes in U.S. airspace were grounded.

"This is one of the biggest events I've seen, and I've been here 30 years," said William Barkhauer, executive director of Morristown Municipal Airport.

Barkhauer said Friday that he was expecting 150 to 200 Super Bowl-bound aircraft and that "one-quarter to a third" of them would be so-called drop-and-go flights, which do not require parking space.

At Columbus, Ohio-based NetJets, the world's largest private jet company, Super Bowl reservations as of Thursday afternoon were running well behind last year's bookings, when the game was in New Orleans.

Company spokesman Tom Hoyt said NetJets expected to book fewer flights because many of its regular Super Bowl customers live in the tri-state region and can take a limousine to the stadium. Also, about 30 NetJets Super Bowl flights were canceled in the past week as a deep freeze gripped the region.

NetJets operated 240 flights in and out of New Orleans for last year's Super Bowl, but as of Thursday afternoon the company had only 160 bookings for Sunday's game between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos.

"It's primarily due to concerns about the weather," Hoyt said. "If things get better, it could change people's minds. A lot of people book at the last minute." Customers can reserve a flight in as little as four to 10 hours in advance, he said.

The Super Bowl private jet arrivals began in earnest Friday at Teterboro, although a few fans began flying in earlier in the week. Several National Football League team owners' jets were spotted Thursday on Teterboro's tarmac, including planes owned by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

The prices charged by jet charter services have barely budged, despite a surge in demand from the Super Bowl, said Victoria Reina Duffy, director of business development at Priester Aviation LLC in Teterboro. On Thursday, the price to fly in and out of Teterboro from Seattle for the game, for a 13-passenger Gulfstream IV, was $80,000. From Denver, for the same aircraft, the price was $58,000. The rates were about $2,000 more than usual to cover additional fees the airport and ground crews are charging this weekend to offset added operations costs, Reina Duffy said.

Newark Liberty International Airport, where private air travel company Signature Aviation has a newly renovated terminal, is also getting Super Bowl business jet traffic. At least one commercial airline, Chicago-based United, added two flights each from Denver and Seattle to Newark this week.

Teterboro expecting up to 600 jets for Super Bowl

More than 1,200 private jets are swooping in and will buzz out of the region's airports for the Super Bowl on Sunday, according to a Federal Aviation Administration estimate, and about half of them are expected to use Teterboro Airport, the closest one to MetLife Stadium.

Teterboro and Morristown airports will be operating at or near capacity this weekend, and special flight restrictions are in place, including reservations-only takeoffs and landings. As many as 600 aircraft are expected at Teterboro, and ground operations have brought in extra staff from around the country to handle the surge. Mario Diaz, general manager of Landmark Aviation, one of five aircraft operations bases at Teterboro, said that company alone has brought in 20 more employees for the weekend to lift its workforce to 140.

"The Super Bowl is one of the biggest draws for private aviation along with the Kentucky Derby, the Indianapolis 500 and the Masters golf tournament," said jet sales broker Janine Iannarelli, president of Houston-based Par Avion Ltd., which is opening an office in Ridgewood this year.

Airports in White Plains, N.Y., and Caldwell in Essex County also are requiring reservations for takeoffs and landings this weekend.

As a routine Super Bowl security precaution, the airspace over East Rutherford will be a no-fly zone from about 2 p.m. until just before midnight on Sunday, a requirement of the FAA.

Teterboro is within the no-flight zone, so its flight operations will be shut down during those hours.

Beginning probably around midnight Sunday, jets are expected to start departing at a steady pace through the night as voluntary noise restrictions have been set aside and the departures may continue through much of the next day.

"That's typically what happens after Super Bowls," said Diaz. "There is a compression of departures right after the game."

Teterboro Airport's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, provided the airport with a machine last week to melt snow on the tarmac to make more space for airplanes. Temperatures are expected to be in the 40s this weekend, easing concerns about the weather. Even so, the Port Authority brought in an extra 21,000-gallon tank of an anti-icing liquid for runways and taxiways, just in case, said Port Authority spokesman Ron Marsico.

Morristown Municipal Airport has closed the smaller of its two runways and is using it to park planes. It is the first time that strategy has been used since the terrorist attacks in 2001, when nearly all of the planes in U.S. airspace were grounded.

"This is one of the biggest events I've seen, and I've been here 30 years," said William Barkhauer, executive director of Morristown Municipal Airport.

Barkhauer said Friday that he was expecting 150 to 200 Super Bowl-bound aircraft and that "one-quarter to a third" of them would be so-called drop-and-go flights, which do not require parking space.

At Columbus, Ohio-based NetJets, the world's largest private jet company, Super Bowl reservations as of Thursday afternoon were running well behind last year's bookings, when the game was in New Orleans.

Company spokesman Tom Hoyt said NetJets expected to book fewer flights because many of its regular Super Bowl customers live in the tri-state region and can take a limousine to the stadium. Also, about 30 NetJets Super Bowl flights were canceled in the past week as a deep freeze gripped the region.

NetJets operated 240 flights in and out of New Orleans for last year's Super Bowl, but as of Thursday afternoon the company had only 160 bookings for Sunday's game between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos.

"It's primarily due to concerns about the weather," Hoyt said. "If things get better, it could change people's minds. A lot of people book at the last minute." Customers can reserve a flight in as little as four to 10 hours in advance, he said.

The Super Bowl private jet arrivals began in earnest Friday at Teterboro, although a few fans began flying in earlier in the week. Several National Football League team owners' jets were spotted Thursday on Teterboro's tarmac, including planes owned by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

The prices charged by jet charter services have barely budged, despite a surge in demand from the Super Bowl, said Victoria Reina Duffy, director of business development at Priester Aviation LLC in Teterboro. On Thursday, the price to fly in and out of Teterboro from Seattle for the game, for a 13-passenger Gulfstream IV, was $80,000. From Denver, for the same aircraft, the price was $58,000. The rates were about $2,000 more than usual to cover additional fees the airport and ground crews are charging this weekend to offset added operations costs, Reina Duffy said.

Newark Liberty International Airport, where private air travel company Signature Aviation has a newly renovated terminal, is also getting Super Bowl business jet traffic. At least one commercial airline, Chicago-based United, added two flights each from Denver and Seattle to Newark this week.